Arrivederci!

Hello, friends! I hope everyone had an amazing weekend and a great start to your week. Things sure have been BUSY! Except for a little lingering cough, I am all better, HEALTHY and ready for Europe! I think it was your kind words of encouragement that made me all better in time. I can't believe we are leaving the day after tomorrow!! I am so giddy. I am also running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get everything ready. Toronto was a blast! I only have a few business pictures that I took, so I won't bore you with them. But before I left we had a fun Friday and Saturday night. Friday we went to our new AAA baseball field to watch the Iron Pigs play. The stadium is beautiful! Here's a picture of my handsome hubby standing by our table; I'm pretty sure we had the best spot in the whole ballpark. We will definitely be going to a ton of games this summer. I can't wait!


On Saturday we bought a new grill! We have been cooking out every night so far and it has been AMAZING! It's so much fun coming home from work on a beautiful day, knowing that we can sit outside, relax, talk about our days and grill some yummy food. My hubsy is quite the grill master and has been so happy with his new toy.

Well, I will be on a blogging hiatus starting now, through next week. Italy, here we come!! I am beyond excited and so thrilled to spend nine days in Italia with my husband and his family. We're leaving tomorrow night for his parent's house and Friday morning, we're off! The day after tomorrow! I can't believe how fast it came. We are staying in a villa outside of Cinque Terre (here's yet another picture of Cinque - I can't get enough)! We have so many amazing places to visit that I can't wait to be back at. I was in Italy for a summer in college, studying abroad, and have been dyeing to share my experiences with my hubsy. It's finally time!

Can't wait for him to see Tuscany!

Florence
Pisa
Milan! I lived in Milan while I was studying, so it seems almost too good to be true that I can show him where I lived, and the beautiful Duomo!

I am thrilled to post all about our trip when we get back and hopefully show you some breathtaking pictures! Please have an amazing and safe time this weekend, next week and next weekend. Boy, I feel like we'll be gone a while. I'll be back on here as soon as I get back! Arrivederci means "farewell" in Italian. So, Arrivederci and God Bless!

XOXO,

Cinque Terre

Happy Thursday! I wrote on Monday how I have been under the weather, and man this thing is really kicking my butt! I am trying so hard to get this flu kicked so I can be 100% healthy and ready for our trip; I'm almost there! I'm actually leaving on Sunday for a business trip to Toronto too, so I have been doing a lot of resting and throwing back liquids. Thank you for your sweet words and well wishes to get better, I really appreciate it!! I wanted to jump on here and write a quick post, and I knew Cinque Terre would be the perfect topic. I feel incredibly blessed that I had the opportunity to spend a summer abroad in Italy during college. I developed friendships and memories to last a lifetime. My favorite spot in Italy was Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera. If you've been there, I bet it's your favorite spot too. Cinque Terre literally means five lands/villages; five fishing villages that are connected with trails. The villages are known for their fresh seafood and homemade pesto. I remember sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean and being completely in awe of what I was seeing and experiencing. I told myself that some day, I would be back here with my husband. I had absolutely no idea who that person was or what he looked like, but I knew I would be back there with him. That's where we're going! It is so crazy to think that God knew exactly who I would be back there with, my studly husband. The coolest part about this whole trip coming up is that it is a gift from my in-laws. What an amazing gift! My husband's parents surprised us and bought a trip for us, his two brothers and themselves. We leave a week from tomorrow and will be gone for ten days. It is like a dream come true. I'm posting a few pictures below. I know there has to be SOME photoshop techniques done to the images, but honestly, the colors when you are seeing it in person are just as vibrant. Isn't it beautiful? If you make it to Italy, will you please go there? I promise you that you will LOVE it. Heck, come with us! :o)

I hope you have an amazing weekend!! These next few weeks will be a bit scattered for me on the blog scene. I will be on here as much as I can to keep up with your wonderful blogs, please know the comments will be coming on full force when I get back! I will definitely be here next week to post before we leave, but it will probably be a short one. Business trip to Toronto, packing and getting ready for Italy, and trying to get ALL better before we leave is starting to sound like an exhausting few days ahead! But well worth it. :o) Happy Thursday and God Bless!

New Shoes To Beat The Blues

Happy Monday! Man, I don't know what it is, but my body is fighting something fierce! I've had a terrible cough, high fever, and severe body aches all over - I am definitely fighting some sickly blues. This post is going to be short, but I wanted to show you my newest shoe purchases! I really don't spend my money on a ton of things, except shoes. I have had a romance with shoes that started when I was a little girl. I collect shoes themselves and shoes in other various forms: shoe cheese spreaders, shoe coffee table books, shoe charm bracelets, shoe candles...the list goes on. Shoes are a hobby of mine. That being said, I have been SO good lately about not buying any new shoes. There are other things we need to be spending our money on right now, so I have been diligently avoiding the shoe section of every department store. Well, over the weekend I was reacquainted with my loves. I am in need of a new pair of COMFORTABLE flats for our trip to Italy coming up (we leave a week from Friday! AH, so exciting!). I was on the lookout for a pair of yellow flats because I have been planning what I will be packing and yellow will be a perfect match for almost every outfit. I even have a black maxi dress I'm taking and how cute will it be to throw in a pair of yellow flats and a yellow bracelet or necklace? Well, I found the perfect pair! And they are like jellies, which are perfect for rainy weather! They honestly feel like they were made for my feet; they are ridiculously comfortable. I am so excited about them! I also bought a pair of MK flip flops that are jelly material and have them pictured below as well. I am so excited about my shoe purchases. I may be under the weather buy my spirits are high - amazing travels coming up and some super cute shoes to take me along the way. :o)

What do you think?

I hope you have a wonderful start to your week!

XOXO,

ynkrxte2d8

Amazingly Easy, Amazingly Delish - Choc Cake!

Hi, friends! I know, this is a lot of recipe posts in a row, but we've had the opportunity to have some awesome friends over lately and with good company coming over comes trying to make good food! Are you familiar with Sandra Lee's Semi-homemade series? I feel like if she hadn't thought of the whole "semi-homemade" idea first, then I probably would have! It's genius. I found a recipe online (allrecipes) for a chocolate cake that I thought would be fun to try and everyone loved it! It was the easiest thing to make (uses a cake mix for the base) and really was SO rich and moist and even has tiny chocolate chips melted throughout - the perfect cake for a chocolate lover. I actually don't even like chocolate cake (i'm definitely a vanilla girl, ie. funfetti cake), but I know a lot of people LOVE chocolate cake, and I also had the smart plan to make something that if we had a lot of leftovers then it wouldn't be so tempting to eat them. My husband is already devouring the rest! The recipe is below; I decided to make it into two cakes and added the fresh strawberries and used a buttercream frosting that I bought from the store. I made this late Tuesday night, so I didn't have the energy to make something completely from scratch, hence why it is so easy! I hope you can make it! The compliments I got from it made me feel like a little Martha Stewart! I kept saying, "No really, it only looks semi-impressive, it's SO easy to make!"

Lots'O'Chocolate Cake

1 (18.25 oz) package devil's food cake mix

1 (5.9 oz) package instant chocolate pudding mix

1 cup sour cream

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups mini semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. In a large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, eggs and water. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour batter into a well greased bundt pan (or two 8" cake pans).

3. Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until top is springy to the touch and wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cook cake thoroughly in pan at least an hour and a half before transferring to a plate and icing. I used buttercream frosting (really, ANY frosting would be good) and cut up fresh strawberries to put between the layers and on top. Another recommendation is to dust the cake with powdered sugar and drizzle some chocolate syrup on top. YUM-O!

That's it! Oh, and I didn't have nearly as much trouble icing this cake as I did the carrot cake. Praise the Lord! So, it is Thursday! Hallelujah! Since I have off on Fridays, it is always SO nice when Thursdays roll around. I know my blogging has been down to about two posts/week, but it really is just so chaotic around here. My days at work have been filled to the brim with projects of my own plus projects that I'm helping others with. We just launched a new Spring line at work and we are SO busy getting it out the door. By the way, I'm in Marketing! Have I ever mentioned that? I loveee Marketing. Creativity is something I thrive off of and it is such a blessing to do it in my line of work. Do you enjoy your job? I wish everyone could enjoy what they do. I love this but I am also really looking forward to being a stay-at-home mom some day. I think that will be the most rewarding job yet. Hard, but rewarding. Alright, better get back to work. Please enjoy your day and have an amazing weekend!

Blessings,

'Lil Easter Recap

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter weekend! We had such a great time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Friday night we went to dinner with some friends and then to the Good Friday service at our church. Afterwards we went home and watched Bolt, the animated Pixar movie. My husband may kill me for saying this, but he has been wanting to see it and picked it out! It was the cutest movie and I loved that it was his choice for our date night. On Saturday we did a MAJOR Spring cleaning of the house, and it feels so good to have that behind us! After we were finished, we went to a BBQ joint and had the best food, including fried alligator tail as an appetizer. I wish I had taken a picture of it for you to see. It was SO good! The seasonings they put on it, and the sauce it was served with, made it so tastey. I would highly recommend trying it if you ever get the chance. Church on Sunday was amazing and the rest of the day was just as great.

We had some surprise Easter guests! My sister, her boyfriend and our niece came over and had lunch with us. We dyed Easter eggs and hid jelly beans around the house for her to find. It was so much fun watching the joy of Easter through the eyes of a child. Every thing turned out yummy and to perfection! Please make the cola ribs if you ever get a chance. Everyone loved them! The only thing that didn't turn out as exactly as I had planned was my carrot cake. I put a picture below; it looked terrible! Luckily, it tasted good. I thought I let it cool long enough, but apparently I didn't. The icing kept picking up the cake and made it impossible to look pretty. It was pretty humorous. I have a few pictures of the food below and also included a little step-by-step guide on how I made the twice-baked potatoes. A few of you hadn't heard of them before so I thought it might be helpful. They sure are DELCIOUS! I hope you have a chance to make them soon.

My sister and niece coloring Easter eggs

My carrot cake full of holes - I put chopped walnuts on the top to cover them as much as possible.
The ribs and corn on the cob. The ribs were sooo yummy! I used Sweet Baby Ray's Award Winning Original BBQ sauce and really didn't add anything else! I did mix in a little honey BBQ that I had on hand.

My sister brought over a yummy salad, so we nixed the insalata caprese. Here are the finished twice-baked potatoes. Sometimes I add bacon but since we had bacon in the salad I left it out. So yummy!
Twice-Baked Potatoes: Bake your potatoes in the oven for an hour. Allow them to cool and then cut them in half lengthwise. Scoop out the insides, leaving a little layer of potatoes so the skins aren't too thin.
Prepare the insides like you would mashed potatoes. I added sour cream, butter, a little bit of milk, salt, pepper and green onions.

Scoop the mixed potatoes back inside the skins, cover with a layer of cheese and scallions and then bake them for another 15 minutes. Please ignore my sloppy job.That's it! It really is so simple. The whole meal was so easy to prepare and was really stress-free. It definitely helps that it was also yummy! I hope your Easters were full of wonderful memories with your loved ones. Enjoy the start to this new week!

Happy Tuesday!

XOXO,

Le Menu & Easter Blessings!

Tomorrow is Good Friday, or as I like to call it, Great Friday. What AMAZING love that my King would die for me!!! I hope everyone has a phenomenal Great Friday and Easter Sunday. I know my heart will be rejoicing and celebrating! Although the Easter meal is insignificant compared to what we're really celebrating, it's still been heavily on my mind! I want it to be special, and a fun meal that my hubsy and I will enjoy. So, without further ado...

Le Menu

This is definitely not your typical Easter fare, but it is something that both my hubsy and I loveee to eat. I'm from Texas and still crave a good helping of BBQ. We have decided to forego the more traditional lamb and ham, and instead have....BBQ'd Ribs! It is making me hungry just thinking about. My real-life lovie, Michelle, from The Ardent Adventurer told me about a recipe that she tried at a crock-pot cook off (which, by the way, sounds like the BEST idea for a get-together - it's on my list for the summer). There were two key things about this recipe that made me realize I just had to try it ASAP - 1. The meat is fall-off-the-bone tender (and) 2. It is SUPER easy to make. Sign me up!

Coka-Cola Ribs: (not trying to endorse the brand or anything, just relaying the recipe as I heard it)

1. Break your slab of ribs into smaller sections that will fit in your crock-pot (I looked online and found several ways to also make this in the oven or on the grill, but I'll do it the crock-pot way so it can cook while we're at church.) The amount of ribs you get depends on the number you're cooking for and how many left-overs you want!

2. Pour 1 liter of Coke into your crock pot and cook the ribs for about five hours.

3. Drain the Coke from the pot

4. Add any type of BBQ sauce you want to the ribs in the crock-pot (I'm going to use Sweet Baby Ray's and add a few of my own ingredients - I'll let you know what I use) and let it continue cooking/simmering for another 2 hours.

5. Voila! Fall-off-the-bone, tender ribs! Mmmmmm. Apparently you don't taste the Coke, it's just the secret to such tender meat. I don't think it can get any easier than that! And the fact that I can put it in before we leave for church makes me love it even more.

Accompanying our meal will be the following: (pics found on google images, except for the first one which probably looks familiar :o)

Insalata Caprese - (of course).

Twice Baked Potatoes: (if you're wondering what these are, there are SO many variations, but a good recipe can be found here - the pic posted at that site shows a TON of toppings that I will probably skip on and just mix in with the potatoes beforehand.)

Corn on the Cob

Instead of the Twice Baked Potatoes, I may make this Ranch Chicken Macaroni Salad that looks super yummy - and substitute with whole grain macaroni. Which would you choose? The recipe can be found here. Heck, they both look good - maybe we'll splurge and have both!

For dessert, I'm going to attempt a home-made carrot cake. I've never done a carrot cake before, so I'm crossing my fingers! The recipe can be found here.

Now I'm so hungry! What are you having? I love any excuse to make a fun meal! I truly hope each one of you has a blessed weekend no matter where you are or what you do!

and

XOXO,

Easter Countdown

I can't believe it has been almost a week since my last post! I feel like everything is moving SO quickly and there just aren't enough days in this month. How has your week been? Can you believe this Sunday is Easter?! I'm super excited; I love Easter, but I can't believe it's already here! Goodness, I feel like I have so many things in general to share. Here is a little rundown...

The image above portrays the enthusiasm and excitement felt by the Tar Heels and also by...ME! I won our whole bracket!!! I couldn't believe it! The funny thing is that I won it back in college too when my husband and I were first dating. I was the only girl in the pool and won the whole thing solely based on picking schools that I felt personal connections with, ha. I love UNC's colors so I picked them to win this year over the other schools I thought may be good. I know, I know...it's ridiculous - but, by george, I won! A sweet victory indeed. :o)



I have spent the first part of this week running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but we're going to Italy in three weeks!! We'll be gone for ten days and I couln't be more thrilled and excited! I'll post a little more about the trip as we get closer to leaving. Sooooo, I realized on Monday that my passport is in my maiden name. PROBLEM! I started panicking and calling every post office and embassy information center I could get my hands on. Some people said it wouldn't be a problem as long as I have my marriage license, but others said it will definitely be a problem. Luckily, every thing worked out okay once I realized that I could expedite it and get back my new passport in two weeks. BUT THEN, it occurred to me that I'm leaving for Toronto on a business trip in about two weeks. PROBLEM #2! I could definitely get away with having my marriage certificate and old passport when going to Toronto, but it didn't matter because my passport and marriage certificate were about to be mailed out - so I wouldn't have ANYTHING. I was a really big mess on Monday and Tuesday. I ended up expediting every possible thing I could, and I am now guaranteed to get everything back before my Toronto trip, and definitely before Italy. On this note, I just want to say how incredibly excited and thankful I am to be going on such amazings trips soon. I traveled so much in my previous job and only recently started getting the travel bug again. Italy has been planned for months, but I just found out about my work trip to Toronto and it couldn't have come at a better time. Praise God for these awesome blessings!!


Now on to Easter! I am so excited because this Easter, for the very first time in our marriage, we have decided to stay home and celebrate with just the two of us. We have never been on our own for a holiday! We absolutely love spending holidays with our families, but I really am excited to spend this holiday with just my hubby. We have it all planned out. We're going to church in the morning (this is exciting because we just found a church in our new area that we love), and then we're going to (attempt) to cook us a yummy Easter feast followed by a day of relaxing and fun "Easter-y" activities, like dyeing Easter eggs. I went to the store and bought everything on Monday because I just know if we wait to buy eggs this weekend they will probably be sold out - don't forget to get yours soon! Oh, and my husband said he's going to hide eggs and make me find them. I really don't think he's kidding either. SO, now I am super excited to share with you what I'll be making for our Easter meal! It is definitely not your typical Easter fare, but it's something we are both really excited about. I will make sure I post the menu either tomorrow or on Friday, depending on work, but I promise I will get it posted.

Whew, I've been a little long winded in this post, but I guess that's what happens when I go almost a week with out posting! I hope the rest of your week leading up to Good Friday is full of thanksgiving and blessings! Thank you so much for the thoughtful words you have been leaving after my posts, they have meant a lot to me and have been encouraging. A few of you asked if I would share any yummy recipes or cool finds from our bazillion magazines we'll be getting and I just want to say that I am thrilled to share and will definitely keep you posted.

Happy Wednesday!

*** all pictures were found on Google Images

Magazine Fiasco

Yayyyy, tomorrow is Friday!! I am pumped and ready for the weekend! Do you have any fun plans? We have a housewarming party and a cook-out to attend, but other than that we plan on relaxing! I'm really looking forward to it.

I mentioned a few times in my previous posts about a "magazine fiasco" that I wanted to share with you. Here's the story!

I traveled A LOT with my previous job, all around the country. It was such an awesome experience and I am so grateful for it! When we decided it was time to move closer to my husband's territory for work, I wasn't that sad about leaving my job. I was ready to be home more and ready for the next big adventure. I gained a TON of airline miles the year of 2007-2008. I was traveling from the East Coast to Arizona, California and Vegas on a semi-regular basis which allowed me to strike up a bundle-load of miles. After I left my job and we moved, I completely forgot about my miles. Two weeks ago when we were visiting my parent's house my dad gave me a stack of mail that had been sent to me at their house (I feel like my parent's will still be getting my mail even when I'm fifty, poor things). I had about five letters all geared towards redeeming my airline miles before they expired. Unfortunately, by the time I read the letters, I had TWO days left. None of the rewards really seemed too exciting at that point, I think we missed the boat on the big ones. One of the letters was about turning in my points for magazine subscriptions, some of them were up to four year subscriptions! My husband got really excited about this, and I did too, at first.

I really try my hardest to keep our new house uncluttered. I love the feeling of having "less" and having a place for everything. I know this will all change once we have kids, of course hoping God blesses us with children, but for now, "clutter-free" is my motto. All I could think about was a house FILLED with magazines, EVERY WHERE. If you even have, for example, six magazine subscriptions per year, that is six magazines per month, times tweleve...and, well, all I can picture is a house filled to the brim with magazines.

We were sitting on the couch considering our options and he said, "I think it would be fun!" And he's right. They had some great magazines options, and for a few years we will have ample reading material for ourselves and our house guests. Yet, I still laugh nervously at the thought of what is to come. I do have a plan though, to get a decorative (large) basket to leave in the living room, and that will forever now be our designated magazine holder.

Ladies, behold what will be coming to our house on a monthly basis from now on.

ELEVEN magazine subscriptions!! I can't help but laugh! Luckily, there are some really good ones. We picked them out together making sure we were pretty even with our choices and the ones we knew we would both read. I was a little surprised they didn't have an ESPN option for the hubs, but luckily they had golf. I'm really excited about Bon Appetit and Martha Stewart Living; I'll let you know if I get some great recipes! Looks like we have some major reading cut out for us!! Too funny.

Happy Thursday! Enjoy your weekends!!